


Together so much

by inspectorwired



Series: logic and light years [3]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Saimota Week 2020, gratuitous thh and sdr2 character cameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24305377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inspectorwired/pseuds/inspectorwired
Summary: In his usual fashion, Saihara fails not to worry more than he should.Momota fails to make a study group.
Relationships: Momota Kaito/Saihara Shuichi
Series: logic and light years [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750891
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	Together so much

**Author's Note:**

> humor-turned-fluff and day 3 of saimota week, pressure/sidekick

"No luck," Momota declares, his head popping out of the male restroom. "Checked all the stalls in there and nothing. You can check out the female ones, if you wanna," he adds, his tone radiating with the generosity of a favor.

"No, thanks," Shuichi says quickly.

Momota shrugs. "Suit yourself."

He excuses himself and walks right in, emerging disappointed after half a minute or so.

"Nothing," he informs him. "Just some goth girl that told me to get out or she'll gouge my eye out with her mascara stick. See anyone while I was gone?"

Shuichi shakes his head. He did notice some familiar faces in the sea of students, like Togami from sociology and Ishimaru from the student council, but no one from their general friend group.

Momota throws his arms up in temporary defeat and takes his hand again. "Pity. Let's try somewhere else, sidekick."  
  


When they run into Amami, he seems like he's looking for someone, too.

"Ah, I'm really no good with subjects like that," he tells them. "I saw Kiibo on the third floor, though."

The next thing they know, Amami has already gone somewhere. Shuichi wonders how he does that.

"Alright!" Momota claps. "Third floor, here we come!"

Shuichi winces as they head towards the staircase. His legs are sore from last night's workout, and they've been walking around a lot, trying to find people. His boyfriend's palm is wide and warm, though, pulling him forward; in seconds, he very nearly forgets all about his discomfort.  
  


As they climb the narrow staircase, they pass Togami again, even though Shuichi could swear that he recently saw him busy with something in an entirely different part of the building.

"Oh, that? Nah, I think it's the other Togami," Momota says noncommittally in response to his comment. Shuichi doesn't ask.  
  


"There he is!" Momota exclaims while the two of them walk along the third floor hallway. "Kiibo, man! What's up?"

The guy in question looks up from the book he was reading. Slam Poetry for Dummies, Shuichi manages to read sideways before the book is neatly returned into Kiibo's backpack.

"Hello, Saihara and Momota," he greets them with a smile.

"Hello, Kiibo," Shuichi says.

"Hey, you know math?" Momota asks him right away. "Double integrals and shit."

Shuichi feels a smile tugging on his lips. That would be a funny name for a class.

Kiibo frowns. "I would prefer it if people didn't assume me to be good at STEM subjects simply because my father and girlfriend are. It is incredibly presumptuous and ignorant."

He seems very adamant about this. Shuichi wonders how often people make the mistake.

"Aw, okay then, our bad!" Momota clasps him on the shoulder. "We got a test soon, Shuichi and I, so we've been trying to make a study group. Right, sidekick?"

"If you're looking for help, you can always ask Iruma! She's a genius with these things," Kiibo adds with a lovestruck little smile. Shuichi would find it a bit excessive, perhaps, if he didn't suspect that it's the same look he has on his face whenever he talks about Momota.

"Sure thing! Let's go, then."

"I think she'll be behind the second building around this time of day," Kiibo adds, just as Momota turns away and suddenly Shuichi realizes that this means more stairs.  
  


On their way down, they pass an enthusiastic Angie, who is as always trying to recruit them into what Shuichi is pretty sure is either a cult or a pyramid scheme, and Shinguuji, who offers them private lessons, despite the fact that anthropology students aren't required to take math, and him insisting that the price is a secret.

"Our souls and backdoor virginity," Shuichi hears Momota murmur from a little further ahead, and he almost mentions that night after the planetarium, but decides against it, in the face of what is most likely just a figure of speech.

Trailing behind, his thighs on fire, Shuichi entertains himself by catching bits and pieces of passing conversations. They walk past a short, brown haired guy in a hoodie organizing a Scrabble get-together, and, a little further down, a sleepy-looking girl mentioning a Hinata, his boyfriend, and a bomb scare.  
  


"There's Iruma!"

The girl in question is indeed standing behind the premises, holding a fat, badly rolled blunt between her fingers. She flinches a little at hearing her own name.

"Hey, losers," she greets them casually anyway, "What's good?"

"Study group," Momota declares proudly. "You're good at math, right? Always makin' robots and shit."

"You are, too, Space Tits. What makes you think I'd help out your sorry virgin asses?"

"Goes both ways, teaming up," Momota corrects her. "Lifting each other up, y'know?"

"As if!" Iruma says, laughing in his face. "You sure you can handle it? The only thing that'll be lifted up if you study in the presence of this endless fucking spring of brains and sex appeal will be your tiny little-"

"Yeah, we fucking wanna study with you! What's the matter with that?" Momota barks at her, annoyed.

She whimpers. "I- I mean! ...I'm actually really busy with other stuff," she admits. "Chem prof's been trying to fail me for throwing a bra into the auditorium. Can you fucking imagine? Shriveled-up motherfucker."

"That sounds tough," Shuichi attempts at being encouraging. This seems to help her recover.

"I know, right? So yeah, I'm gonna be jerkin' it solo these days."

"Eh, what can you do." Momota tells her. Shuichi senses that he's feeling a bit more sympathy for the girl, now that he learned that she's being discriminated against because of lingerie.

"I could ask that slut Tsumiki to make you some of the pills we invented. No sleep, study in your sleep, gets you trippin' like rabbits on viagra once you take 'em." 

"I think we'll pass on that offer," Shuichi says quickly.

"Suit yourself, micro dick."  
  


"Gonta has math," Momota recalls later, chewing on a sandwich, sitting on a chair sideways. "Biology student."

Shuichi touches his chin, a plastic cup of coffee in his other hand. "I think Gonta's away doing research until the end of the week, though," he says, half lost in thought.

Momota takes another huge bite. "Bummer."

Silence; chewing.

"I think Toujo only has, like, statistics or some shit."

"Ouma's fairly good at math," Shuichi mentions then. Momota almost chokes on his sandwich.

"Absolutely not!" He manages. "I know what studying with _him_ is like. Don't wanna get the fucking cops called on us again."

Momota seemed to be having the time of his life at the time, but he has a point; it doesn’t exactly make for a good study atmosphere. Though, really, what should they have even expected from the guy who spent his entire first week entering classrooms and introducing himself as the new teacher.

"I'm jealous of Harumaki. Doesn't have to deal with this shit. Why'd _you_ even have math anyway?" He adds, irritated. "'S not like you'll need it in life."

"Ask the people who came up with the list of mandatory classes," Shuichi answers, a slightly pained expression on his face. 

"Eh, it's not all bad, though. Lets me take a class with my sidekick."  
  


"Hello, my favorite gays!" A voice behind them sing-songs, right before Ouma pops up.

Momota groans loudly. "There you go, you fucking summoned him."

"Am I the stuff of your nightmares?" Ouma pushes his heart-shaped sunglasses down his nose to bat his eyelashes at them. "Maybe I'll put a curse on you so that you'll never-"

"Stop with that occult crap, man!"

"Aw, but I'm not occult crapping you! Just dropping by to blow y'all a kiss, on my way to make the deal with the mean girl. My bestie Enoshima is selling notes and I'm _so_ helpless without them."

"No, you're not," Shuichi says. "You must be planning something."

"True!" Ouma smiles. "Saihara is so smart. That's why you're my favorite."

"You didn't even ask us for notes," Momota complains, annoyed with this for some reason.

"I haven't suffered any brain damage yet, Momota, my sweetest. You," he tells Shuichi , "Have a butt-ugly handwriting, even if your letters are at least all cute and even, but _you_ ," he turns back to Momota, "write like something possessed by a demon goat trying to summon another, smaller demon goat."

"What the fuck," Momota says.

Ouma sighs and rubs his temples. "I don't even know, I'm so tired. Wearing these glasses to hide my eyebags. I'm hanging on a thread of sanity as we speak." He looks up and grins at them. "Just kidding!"

Before any of them can do anything, he slaps Momota's hand, making him drop the remains of his nearly-eaten sandwich, and runs away, cackling.

"Fucking five year old."

It's not that Shuichi is bad at math; it's one of his fairly strong subjects this semester, but it's nearing the end of their first semester and he is under enormous amounts of pressure to succeed. He's been studying almost every day, but the 'almost' excludes all his bad days, and the fear of failure is almost paralyzing.

 _Is that so_ , Momota had told him, confident; _Well, we can’t have that_.

Shuichi sometimes wonders if his boyfriend's constant encouragement is about the only thing that keeps him going.

"Oh, well," Momota says now, seeming somewhat disappointed with the situation, "Study group or no, we're doing this thing."

"You two." Harukawa's voice sounds strange, the way voices always sound strange when heard over the phone speaker. They're about to start studying, sitting in Shuichi’s bedroom, Momota's phone between them.

"I'm not calling to wish you luck," she says. 

She's absolutely calling to wish them luck, Shuichi knows, but values his life enough not to say anything.

"I know that you're capable enough to get this done, either way. So, there's no need to."

"Aw, Harumaki!" Momota exclaims, touched, the girl's hiss indicating that the noise he made is probably cracking on her side, distorted with the volume. "I knew that you care!"

"Wanna get murdered?"

"But, don't worry about us! We're on top of this thing. I got a plan and everything."

He definitely doesn't have a plan, Shuichi thinks.

"You don't have a plan." Harukawa says, flatly.

"...Alright, maybe, but I'll come up with something! A battle strategy good enough to get us through anything."

"Like dividing the work into smaller segments?" Shuichi tries.

"Yeah, or, like! We could take turns studying, like night watch. Extra vigilant in case the enemy attacks. We're dividing up the work that way."

"Ah, hm. Would that really work?"

"You guys are idiots," Harukawa deadpans, an intro for the _click_ of her hanging up.

"Well," Momota says, leaning back in his chair. "It's real nice of her to cheer us on."

Shuichi hums, reaching for his drink. Encouragement comes in all kinds of shapes and forms, he muses.

"So! Let's get going, then. How many pages of this did you say there was?"  
  


Eventually, they go about starting their work. Books and syllabus opened, Blue Oyster Cult playing from the speakers, they're going over the required lessons.

Momota leans over him from behind in a half-hug, and watches as he flips the pages to find the starting and end point. The amount, at this point, seems both doable and terrifying.

After they've divided the work, they separate and sit down trying to go through the parts one by one. It's not going as well as he hoped.

"Aw man, I don't get this at all."

"Aren’t you supposed to be good at this?" Shuichi asks, hoping it doesn’t sound accusatory. His head hurts a little.

"Physics and astronomy are different from this!" Momota justifies himself. "An' besides, I get the point of it. But the problems are all routine and just… Well, anyway," he changes the subject and his tone. "This'll be a piece of cake once we're done with it. Right, sidekick?"

"Yeah," Shuichi replies.  
  


A while later, he's a nervous wreck, burdened with a thinking equivalent of having been running for too long. His brain feels like it's about to leak through his ears, letters are dancing in front of his eyes, he's starting to wonder about the universe, fate, and whether the point humanity went wrong could be traced back to the exact moment they invented triangles, so he's pretty sure he's in need of a breather.

"Hey," he says out loud. Momota immediately looks up.

"Break?" he asks.

Often, Shuichi wonders what he's done to deserve his boyfriend. He nods.

"Alright." Momota gets up and stretches. "Wait here, I'm gonna go and bring us some snacks."

Shuichi plops down on his back with a sigh and grabs his phone, starts scrolling through the messages that he missed after leaving it on mute.

There isn't much going on in the group chat. Yumeno sent a few unintelligible letters, Chabashira translating her girlfriend's words right after, as usual. _she says that whoever took her notebook will pee their pants and fail all their classes_ , the girl wrote.

There's one unexpected message from Hoshi: _Therapist said this wld be good 4 me. So. Love you all_ . Below that one is a wall of a dozen hearts and _ly2_ s from more than half of the people present. Shuichi smiles.

He's also got a private message from Akamatsu, reminding him to take breaks and not overwork himself.

As soon as he answers her, the phone rings in his hand.

"Hey! Hanging in there?" His friend's calm, cheerful voice makes him feel a bit better immediately.

"More or less. We're figuring it out," he says, and hopes that his tone won't make her worry.

"You didn't have more coffee?"

"Ah." He knows better than to lie to Akamatsu, so he says carefully, "Momota made us some when we started."

"Saihara, I swear to God."

"We'll take care, I promise," he says quickly.

Akamatsu takes a deep sigh, one that indicates a person's entire lifetime supply of patience and goodwill. "Take a glass of water and tell your boyfriend to at least make u eat healthy."

He doesn't comment on that one, looking at Momota, who just got finished rummaging around the kitchen and is coming back with a bowl of chips in one hand, energy drink in his other.

He ends the call exchanging _Love you_ s, and switches the phone back to mute.

Momota sits back down across from Shuichi, cross legged, and rolls his T-shirt sleeves up to his shoulders. "What'd she say?" he asks.

Shuichi sighs. "Nothing much, really. She's just worried about us."

"Why, though? There's no need to," Momota says, a little muffled through the handful of chips that he shoved into his mouth. "We are on top of this thing! We're doing it so good."

Shuichi attempts to smile, trying hard against the near-paralyzing pressure hanging over his head.

"But, man, Akamatsu's got it easy," Momota comments, feeling around for the pen that he forgot he stuck behind his ear. "Having fun at the Academy, raised by a fucking piano, hasn't seen a single number in her life. Lucky girl."

Shuichi snorts, recognizing this as the huge exaggeration it is, but the claim hits close to wherever his brain decided home is at the moment. He's been so tired and stressed lately that it almost makes him feel like he, too, has no idea what numbers even are anymore.

I can't do this, he thinks next.

"...Hey, what's wrong?" Momota is frowning, giving him a look. "Still worried, are you?"

"A little," Shuichi admits. He feels a bit nauseous. "What if we can't do this?"

Momota looks at him for a second or two, then he smiles. "Then we'll try harder. No giving up! We'll pass this thing, even if it's impossible."

"Yeah…" He knows he doesn't sound very convinced, but he can't help it.

Momota pauses, thinking. "You know what? Let's stretch that break out a little. Do a few exercises."

Shuichi almost tells him no, but working seems impossible at the moment anyway, and he figures that it'd probably be good for him, if not for clearing his head then for getting rid of the nervous energy.

"Yesterday was a leg day, so today we can go with sit-ups. That alright?"

Shuichi nods.

"Hell yeah, let's go then! Fifty sit-ups, then we're back to studying."

The two of them clear most of the things from the floor, lie down on the carpet and lock their legs in the middle. They do their exercise the way they're used to, and by the time they're finished, Shuichi feels more content, like he's getting somewhere, having managed to do something concrete, tangible.

"Man, I needed this," Momota says, stretching. "Been starting to feel like if I saw another integral I was gonna fucking eat it. This really got me full of energy, though."

"Thank you," Shuichi says softly.

"Hey, no worries. You might be my sidekick but I'm also your sidekick, yeah? We're there to help each other out."  
  


Some hours later, they've made a kind of a functioning system, the problems on one pile of papers and the theory to be learned on the other. Shuichi is mostly in charge of making sense of the former, while Momota is explaining the latter.

It's going. It's going really well.

He shouldn't be surprised, really, that the two of them work so well together, their strengths complementing each other's; organization and spirit, shoveling through either tedious or incomprehensible, each their part. "That one's easy, look," Momota says from time to time, explaining the formula in a way that makes sense, while Shuichi figures out the patterns and repetition.

A light, elated feeling blooms in his chest every time he raises his eyes from the book, sees Momota next to him, focusing hard and chewing on his pen. He has shadows under his eyes and stress in his features and a coffee stain on his Close Encounters T-shirt, hair dropping, and he looks gorgeous.  
  


Eventually, Momota sighs, getting up to drop onto the bed with a _plop_.

"Wanna call it a night? I'm beat," he decides.

Shuichi raises his eyes and looks around, sees pens and notes and study material scattered across the room, giving off the impression of a hurricane recently passed. The sky outside is turning blue, the yellow light bulb looking strange against it.

"Mm. Mostly done as well. I'll be with you in a second."

Trying to get back to reading, he hears shuffling behind himself, as Momota grabs the back of his shirt and pulls.

"Come here, it's fuck in the morning. I know how tired you are."

He pulls harder and Shuichi topples over, falling on top of Momota. The next thing he knows, he's flipped over and lying under the comforting weight. It feels good.

"...You're right."

"Damn right I am," Momota laughs and gives him a kiss. Shuichi kisses back and melts against him, tracing Momota's back with his hands.

"Just a bit more, though," he says when they part.

As Momota rolls off him and turns them both to the side, Shuichi picks the book up again, this time lying on the bed. Momota mumbles something and grips him tighter. Shuichi is pretty sure that he's already snoring, not even a minute in. Lucky.

His eyes are stinging with tiredness, but he keeps on rereading the chapters that he's less sure about for some time after, blinking slowly, less present with each second. His last conscious thought being, _I have to get up and turn off the lights,_ he doesn't register the exact moment he dozes off.  
  


When he wakes up, it's morning, and he's warm enough to leave him just this side of comfortable. Momota is holding onto him from behind, breathing steadily into his neck.

He's still dizzy and confused, his eyes heavy, but somehow, all the jumbled information from last night seems to have settled in his head. He almost feels confident.

Shuichi lifts himself up a little, careful not to untangle from Momota or wake him, and feels around for his phone to check the messages.

He's got several from Akamatsu, the last few being _Good luck <3 Remember to drink water _ , and _Proud of u!!!_

One from Ouma: five horse emojis in a row. Shuichi shakes his head.

A few in the group chat, one of them from Iruma, sharing with them all a picture of a new choker that she bought. Under it, Chabashira wrote: _she found the notebook!!! thx for the help, girls <333 :******_  
  


Shuichi turns off the phone screen and closes his eyes again. He thinks about the last exam they had to take together, Momota swooping him into his arms and spinning them around when he found out that they both passed.

He doesn't think that there is a single thing he couldn't do, no matter the hardship or the amount of pressure or anxiety, if Momota is there with him to tackle it together.

**Author's Note:**

> as a stem myself i feel like i have every right to be bitching about math-et-cetera as well as inflicting it onto these gays, armed with firsthand experience, all things considered  
> my partner had math in his first year even though hes a forensic psychology student. makes no sense if u ask me. parts of this stemmed from the fact
> 
> i admit that the concept of working together while under pressure could be used to write into so many other, more substantial stories, but hey, look what i can do [shameless self indulgence noises]
> 
> no honorifics and calling the pov character by name felt more natural somehow so i stuck with that
> 
> ty for reading <3


End file.
